Darkness in the Maker's Light
by HedgeNinja
Summary: Direct sequal to 'For I have Sinned', Post DA2, M!Hawke. You can't hide forever; cover blown and captured, Hawke is at Sebastian's mercy and the prince will have the truth. One way or the other. Kmeme prompted darkfic, warnings inside.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Bioware own everything, I own nothing. All fun, no profit._

_A/N: This is a direct sequel to a fic I wrote filling another kmeme prompt (and I will not be trying to combine two prompts again!). If you don't feel like reading the earlier- T rated- piece (although I do like readers...) I enclose a helpful summary below._

**Warnings:** This is a dark!fic prob R-rated, torture and/or non-con will be in most chapters. If you do not like or are triggered by anything like this please, please **do not** read.

Hawke sides with the mages, pisses Sebastian off, gets Anders out of Kirkwall and then bails, disguised, for Ferelden via Starkhaven. Unwittingly rescues Fiona Harriman from blood mages, is presented to Sebastian Vael, becomes Starkhaven's Guard Captain (it would have been a tad awkward to say no), intending to bail again later when war hits. So far so sneaky until a healer and possibly-not-blood mage chooses not to kill him during a fight, and Hawke refuses to hand him over to the templars immediately. While 'explaining' this decision the secretary of Kirkwall's ambassador recognises Hawke and blows his cover. Capture ensues; now read on.

* * *

><p>"<em>For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost" Chant of Light Canticle of Trials 1:14_

-o-o-

Hawke awoke to cold, silence and through slitted eyelids as he lay still, darkness. When he cautiously opened them pitch blackness still surrounded him. Not a hint of light to show where he was, or where the way out might be. He shivered at the chill of the stone underneath him; they'd stripped him down to his breeches. Metal hung at wrists and ankles, a short chain attached the latter to a wall. Carefully one hand outstretched, Hawke groped his way along the wall finding a corner behind him, elsewhere his fingertips found only dressed stone walls and empty air. Stiff muscles protested along with the lingering ache in his skull and the dryness in his mouth. He might have been out for a couple of hours and here could be anywhere. He felt a pang of worry for Perrin and the others left holding the mage, how many of them might be undeservedly caught up in his spiral of destruction.

_/Nothing you can do for them now, and you're in far far deeper; worry about yourself. No matter who knows where you are, no-one's coming for you. Screwed up your latest run for the hills, all because you couldn't keep your head down just a little bit longer; no, you had to go and stick your neck out for some total stranger. Again./_

This time it was technically two someones, a kick from the present and the past; he remembered her now.

_-o-o-_

_It had been a few months after they'd moved into the estate; she'd been caught sneaking through the kitchens with an ease that said she'd been here before. Eight? Ten? Half-starved it was hard to tell, Maker only knew how she'd kept out of the slavers' grasp. Mother dead, she had a sister to protect; and in Kirkwall's undercity the clichés were true more often than not._

"_I can help Messere, in the kitchens, I can cook. An' your bread oven needs fixing, an' the stew needs more spices, an' the meat in th' locker needs using or she's the only one what'll be eatin' it" gesturing to Elka. In the pause following this outpouring of information Elka decided that this last snippet was the most relevant, moving to gently butt her head against the side of the girl's. Or perhaps she'd sensed something the rest of them hadn't, Hawke didn't miss the grimace of pain that crossed the dirt smudged face, or the barely audible whimper. When Hawke removed the ragged strip of cloth acting as a headscarf the reason became horribly obvious; someone had made the epithet 'flat ear' literal- with a knife. The wounds were fresh, perhaps not even a day old, barely scabbed; and shocked everyone to silence._

"_I'll fetch Anders. She does _not_ go to the Guard." Quiet fury in his words, adding silently, (and then I will find the individual who did this, Elka could use the exercise…)_

"_No Messere, please!" she'd clutched at his sleeve._

-o-o-

Light, blinding after the darkness poured in without warning as the cell door thudded open. Blinking, he glimpsed three of them in the swinging glow of the lantern before the first boot buried itself in his gut. The beating was almost leisurely, sanctioned not sneaked. Hawke put his back to the wall and rolled with what he could, that lasted all of half a minute before a hand yanked the chain at his wrists behind his head and hauled him to his knees. Mailed fists in his belly, a backhand across the face, feeling his lip split and hacking at the trickle of blood down the back of his throat from his nose. When they shoved him to the floor again he barely managed to turn his head, white spots flashing in front of him, a boot pinioned the chain at his wrists trapping his hands, denying him his one defense. He fought to keep his teeth locked on his grunts of pain as the blows moved in a steady pattern across unprotected ribs, groin, spine. Eventually the boot moved to his throat and the fight became one merely to breathe as the blood pounded in his ears, dimly hearing their chuckles of enjoyment. When the pressure finally eased he struggled to suck in rasping lungfuls of air, quickly driven from him as he felt a rib crack under a final shot, the work of that mage- in an earlier life it seemed- undone.

"Sleep well traitor" as the door slammed shut leaving him again in blackness, Hawke spat blood and forced himself to sit up. Tilting his head back against cool stone he willed the pain in his side to ease, and the coloured lights to fade from in front of his face whether his eyes were open or not…

-o-o-

"_It's alright, he's a healer; he won't hurt you I swear" although he wasn't sure if even Anders' skills could replace what had been lost like that. He'd watched the wariness barely masking fear in her face change to a fierce determination._

"_They don't matter Messere, how they heal. I don't need no points to know that I'm an elf. But without 'em I'll find better work, proper work, I won't be nothing my whole life!" He hadn't known what to say in the face of that courage. But he had decided in that instant that she _would_ get that chance. Kaie had insisted on working immediately, refusing to take 'charity' of any kind for either of them; she'd eventually agreed to take them to retrieve her sister from some hole in Darktown, more because she trusted Elka than any of the humans he suspected. But within a week of her presence in the kitchens Hawke had almost regretted his promise to find her a position in a household with more opportunities for advancement. He'd heard from her once a few years later, she was managing a household for some other noble, perhaps Arinshaw._

-o-o-

Apparently she'd continued to do well. And she'd recognised him through his efforts at hiding that had held for two months under the nose of an enemy who knew him far better.

_/This is your reward for doing favours for people; haven't you learnt that yet?/_

He wasn't sure how much time passed in the dark, perhaps a day, marked mainly by increasing hunger and thirst. And by the visits; irregular but often enough to make any attempt at sleep shallow and broken. Sometimes just one stopping to add a few more bruises, the three of them came for him twice more; the second time he felt something small and painful pop across the top of his right foot. Sometimes just a pounding on the cell door outside; enough to jerk him into uneasy waiting.

-o-o-

The next time they arrived and prioritised lighting the lantern rows along the walls over kicking the shit out of him Hawke knew who had to be coming. Eyes narrowed against the glare he watched them warily, as new (and not encouraging) details of the cell became clearer. The heavy wooden table to the right of the entrance; other restraints along a side wall; embedded metal rings here and there across the floor. And in the room's centre two solid wooden posts set into the ceiling, perhaps a metre long, wide spaced. Metal rings ran in pairs down their lengths, chain hung looped from one set. And if the dust in some places indicated that the room hadn't seen a lot of recent use the centre shackles, like his, were new. Hawke did his best to ignore the twisting knot of unease in the pit of his stomach. 'What ifs' wouldn't give him any more control over the situation.

"Wake up traitor. You've got a visitor" A heel slammed into his kidneys, his hands momentarily freed as he arched in pain then refastened behind his back. A casual hand in his hair dragged him to the centre of the room, shoved him to his knees as Sebastian Vael entered unhurriedly, a metal mug clasped in one hand. The guards filed out, Hawke couldn't see them through the cell door left half open but he doubted they'd gone far. The prince took a long deliberate drink of the mug's contents before placing the vessel on the table, his eyes never leaving Hawke's. With an effort Hawke resisted licking his lips at the prospect of liquid so close and returned the other man's look as the silence stretched. _/Your move prince. I'm not going anywhere./_

-o-o-

"Two months. Two months and Maker forgive me, I did not see."

"Well if you're lucky, you might still spot Anders around somewhere. Here's a hint, look for the maid's outfit." The backhanded blow rocked him on his knees, his lip splitting against a ring's edge. _/So; you _really_ want to make this harder for yourself?/_

"Where is the abomination?" Sebastian's tone was cold enough it should have left frost on the flagstones but it was his eyes that told Hawke there would be no easy way. The earlier hot rage of betrayal now cooled and hardened, into righteousness, a certainty in the truth of his position; and a complete absence of mercy.

Hawke shrugged "No idea." In that moment deeply grateful that it was true. Can't reveal what you don't know.

"What was the mission of the malificarum at the warehouse? You went to quite the effort to rescue one of your accomplices. Did they bring information; news from Anders?" The name spat out, like venom.

"The mage? Actually, he was just a desperate stray; I've a knack for picking them up by chance. Of course you'd know, being one of them."

Sebastian scowled. "How many more malificarum have you slipped in and out of Starkhaven to bring ruin to her as you did to Kirkwall?"

"You mean in my copious free time in between being your blighted Guard Captain" a muscle in the prince's jaw twitched briefly as he swallowed; interesting "and dealing with I don't know how many blood mages, usually fatally? I knew no-one was reading those progress reports."

"How fitting that it should be the defense of one of your spies that brings you finally to justice. He was most…forthcoming."

_/Another casualty; probably would have been cleaner if you'd just killed him in that warehouse./_

-o-o-

"Templars can't do their jobs properly if you don't give them a mage to torture every so often?"

"Before the Maker there may be some redemption for the truth of the sins he eventually confessed and repented."

"Likely he gave you whatever lie you wanted after whatever you did to him. Since you've got the truth you want to hear, why are we having this conversation?"

"I wished to see if you have even a shred of honour left for the city that once called you its Champion, to ease her fate. Give up the abomination, confess your treasons-"

"Treason? To who, you? Kirkwall isn't part of Starkhaven yet whatever Maker-given right you think you have for your little war of expansion-" another blow cut him short.

"Then all your loyalties are as false as those you swore to Starkhaven, and to me." Ah; it always came back to that. Hawke swallowed blood and spit, the tiny amount of moisture not enough to ease the dryness coating his tongue, suddenly tired of the futility of the discussion.

"I'm not going to help you fight _your_ war, so are you going to finish what you should have at the Gallows that night, or just throw me to the mob?"

A faint smile crossed the prince's face as something dark flickered under the coldness "A quick death to create a martyr? I think not. Only those present know of your discovery and fewer still know where you are. You are mine for as long as I wish it." A few quick strides brought him alongside Hawke, a hand fisting in his hair wrenching his head back to meet Sebastian's eyes. "And eventually, you will give me the mages' plans against Starkhaven, and the location of your precious Anders. And" he hissed "you _will_ give me the truth of the blood magic you have used."

-o-o-

_/Wait, what?/_ "Magic? Not actually a mage here. Even your templars figured that one out."

"I had long suspected the abomination, yet I let your defense of him, and my own weakness, cloud my judgment. Until that night when the foundation of our civilization was destroyed and I saw too late. How the two of you had conspired in the evil of that ritual, the power you must have called down with the blood of so many souls, including one I loved so well. And even with that knowledge when I saw the danger I…thought it a test of the resolve of my chosen path, sent from the Maker for my earlier failings."

"Thought wh-" The hand left his hair, fingers digging in brutally just beneath his jaw and Hawke's words cut off as Sebastian's mouth crushed against his, bruising, teeth sinking in hard enough to send blood trickling from his split lip when he tried to jerk his head back. When Sebastian pulled away the fingers at his throat hauled him up and sent him stumbling against the table, the mug clattering across the floor. Hawke shook his head as realisation set in. "Seducing you? You think that …everything was about _that_?"

"I do not, yet, know the depths of your plans, but what better way to begin than by destroying the main point of resistance against your war. Any fortress can fall to treachery from within, _Matthias Hale_. Still I did not think that even your arrogance would bring you personally to Starkhaven's heart."

Hawke fought back an insane desire to laugh "My arrogance? When you think I started a war to get in your pants?" He failed to hold back a smirk, knowing it would cost him later. "You know prince, if you wanted to join in the fun, all you had to do was ask."

-o-o-

Splinters dug into his chest as he was flung face down, his head slamming into the wood. A hand at his neck held him down and he tensed at the tip of a blade trailing down his spine, a whisper away from drawing blood.

"I hear your words for what they are, put no trust in your lies, let them hold no sway over me." The knife sliced at the waist of his pants, shredding fabric and nicking stinging lines across the skin beneath.

"Liar" Hawke mumbled, fear rippling through the dizziness when he felt the warm heat of Sebastian's erection pressing against him from behind. As he bucked against the hips pinning him against the table's edge; the prince's voice came, roughened with need "But every man falls to sin, and they cannot be confessed that have not been committed."

As the ruined fabric fell free the pressure of a knee at his groin buckled his knees with a moan that slid to a scream as two fingers forced into him dry. Hawke gritted his teeth as they wrenched him open, scissoring inside him sharply, cruelly, their intent pain not preparation. For an instant it lessoned as they withdrew, short lived as Sebastian's cock, wax slicked, thrust into him full length drawing another howl from him. Blood trickled, coated the wax, increasing the friction until every stroke seemed to scour him raw inside.

-o-o-

Desperately he tried to find some footing to gain even a little relief as every movement ground his own genitals against the table's edge, the bruising ache off time to the sharper, deeper pain. Hating the low chuckle that rolled from Sebastian's throat as his efforts forced him to push back against the thrusts "Be careful what you ask for" he growled hoarsely, his rhythm speeding up as his fingers dug bruises across Hawke's hips and ass. Hawke drew on the small pains, sweat stinging his eyes (only sweat, he would give them nothing else), ragged gasps burning in his throat, trying to drag himself even a few steps above the pain thudding like a second heartbeat.

Finally Sebastian's rhythm faltered as he spent himself with a shuddering cry, withdrawing abruptly to push himself away shakily. Hawke sagged against the table, his body feeling disjointed, unstrung, in that moment uncaring of anything, the voice in his head saying to get up, turn around, simply so much noise. The room was silent but for the uneven breathing of its occupants; Sebastian said nothing but after a long moment there a sharp whistle, a summons. The sound of approaching footsteps had Hawke turning instinctively on legs still unsteady, holding to the tenet that whatever happened- and he wouldn't think of that- he'd see it with his head up. Three figures he was fairly sure he'd met several times already in this room approached; expectant leers did nothing to improve the looks of any of them. One of them moved to his left and he jerked as he felt the leather roughly encircle his neck, someone's belt as an instant choke leash. A yank on it had him on his knees again gagging for air as a voice behind him growled "You even think about biting an' I'll wrap this round and twist your sodding cock off".

A second stepped forward, one hand fumbling at his own belt; Hawke remembered without pleasure the heavy studded double ring that linked the remains of the man's first finger to the index on his left hand. Behind him for a moment as that hand grabbed his jaw Hawke glimpsed Sebastian leaning, arms folded, against the doorframe watching the scene, dark enjoyment in his eyes.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I love being back to writing snarky!Hawke. _

_Original prompt: Hawke spares Anders, which makes Sebastian PISSED off and he leaves to get his army. But: Sebastian desired Hawke, and is somehow convinced that Hawke used blood magic to do this(Or witch craft.) Hawke is caught and Sebastian is determined to make him/her confess to this... By any means necessary. Think 'Hellfire'._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: So three weeks in rural northern India does not make for easy internet access, sorry about the update delay._

_Warnings: Torture._

* * *

><p>Slow breaths, shallow breaths, eventually the shivering would ease; it had nothing to do with cold, even as sweat chilled against his skin. Eventually the twisting in his gut would settle that had already had him retching down to dry heaves. The less he moved, the less the pain spiked as if it was trying to claw its way out. He would not think about what had happened to cause that pain, but his mind crawled towards other questions…<p>

-o-o-

"_I might have understood if you'd just told me" the words came like broken glass from his throat, so many emotions fighting to make themselves heard in his voice but in the end it all came down to _why_? _

"_Did that spirit tell you to do this?" knowing even as he asked that understanding wouldn't be that simple._

"_No. When he and I merged, we became one" Anders wouldn't look at him. "I…wanted to tell you but, what if you'd wanted to help, or worse to stop me; I couldn't let that happen, let you get involved." _

_At that at least he can give the anger free reign "_Involved_?" Hawke hissed furiously "We were lovers, I thought we were partners, had each others back how many times" Anders flinched slightly "I _helped_ you get what you needed to do this, and now the responsibility for cleaning it up is dumped on me. In what _possible_ fucking way am I _not _involved?"_

"_I know." Anders' eyes lifted to his then, there was no blue glow but the look in them was that of a man standing in the Fade, no reality but the one he made inside his own head. "I'm…glad though, that it's you who'll do what has to be done."_

-o-o-

_/And what if you didn't even know the full of it?/_ the corner of his mind where he'd done his best to bury those memories whispered.

_/Perhaps you couldn't kill him because Sebastian has the truth of it…/_

No. He would not believe that, although it wasn't his beliefs that really mattered at the moment.

_/If there is even an easier way under Sebastian's words; if you say the words they put in your mouth, give them Kirkwall, what you know on Anders. Isn't that why you spared him, hoping someone else would finish what you couldn't?/_

Yes and no; part of him had seen just another enemy as he'd stood there that night, part of him had wanted even the slightest hope that something in the world could be salvaged from this; even as Merrill's words about 'putting things right' sounded about as firm as the ashes drifting on the wind. In the end though it had been because killing the man he'd loved knowing the spirit would go free had been the one sacrifice he would not make; for Kirkwall, or anyone.

_/Looks like another piece of the past coming back to bite, you get to be the distraction again; all you can do now is buy everyone else some time, the longer you can hold his interest./_

_/Really? How long do you think you can actually delay the war?/_

_/We'll find out. Any chance of getting that shield and armor back?/_

_/No./_

-o-o-

His efforts at dulling the pain became so much wasted time as soon as he took advantage of the fact that despite his hands behind his back, this time they hadn't chained him to anything else. Hadn't thought him worth the trouble. His shoulders and bruises screamed, and blood smeared tacky across his wrists, metal digging into them as inch by agonising inch he worked his hands under his body to in front of him; despite the urge that shouted move it! Uncertain of how long he had before they paid him another visit.

When they did return, only two this time, Hawke took the moment when everyone's eyes adjusted to the shift in light to make a run for it. Shoving past them wildly, aiming for the door at the end of the short corridor, hoping against hope to find something with a lock to put between him and them, even for a short while. Pants sounded good as well. It might have actually worked; there'd been a door ajar and everything, if not for the guard entering on the far side of the room he'd found himself in. Hawke hadn't encountered him before but even as he charged the man stepped forward, the lock's click on the only escape route audible even over the sound of cursing and keys at the door behind him. Three on one; probably wasn't going to go well.

-o-o-

A short vicious struggle later he was half aware of being dragged back to his cell as the lights swung and lurched in his vision in time with the ringing in his ears. They'd found a set of stocks to add to the room's furnishings; then decided to get creative. On his knees as they lashed his feet to the base of the frame behind him before yanking his arms back over the crosspiece, the rough edge digging a line across his shoulder blades as the ropes hauled his wrists towards his ankles. Any respite in them leaving him alone was quickly offset by the growing misery as every muscle from neck to knee knotted, pain rippling through him with every shivering breath.

At some point, much later, they released him; dumping him on the floor just long enough for it to feel like hot wire was being shoved under his skin as the blood returned. Then they dragged him to the posts. Metal at wrists and ankles again, his feet to rings in the floor, arms stretched out and above his head just high enough to bring his heels slightly off the ground. The only indication of time passing came as every movement became a matter of shifting the pain between aching legs and arms feeling an inch from being wrenched from their sockets as he slipped in and out of a broken doze that gave no rest.

"_Help me defend the mages."_

"_You're, giving me my life?"_

"_Unless you're too much of a coward to finish what you've started? This is the part of justice that doesn't just happen; you actually have to work at it." He'd meant the words to hurt; Anders had simply nodded, subdued._

"_No! He dies, or I am returning to Starkhaven…"_

-o-o-

"Sleep well?" the words mocking, a lantern swung in front of his face, blinding him, close enough he could feel the warmth of the glass.

"Bed's hard, service is lousy" Hawke rasped. Shades he was thirsty; his lips dry and starting to crack.

Sebastian's voice came from the door way behind him as he entered "All suffering we bring down on ourselves. You know how to free yourself from this."

"Right, confess all those sins you think I committed. And then all will be forgiven, will it?"

The dark zeal flickered again in the prince's eyes "Justice must still be done, however imperfect. But what you face here should matter little to what you will face beyond this life."

"Really; immortal souls didn't seem like your priority at our last conversation." Despite his resolve not to give that memory power, as he opened his mouth it took far too much control to suppress a shiver.

"I was weak; I allowed myself to fall to your spellcraft. But I will be cleansed of my sins; no mercy will come until you confess to yours." Sebastian titled his head, waiting.

"Sorry; you'll have to keep trying to sell that lie without me" Hawke managed.

"All lies fall before the Maker; even yours." Sebastian stepped away as another man came forward, dressed in the robes of a Chantry brother but with a hardness in his eyes that shouted 'Templar' to Hawke's experience, uncomfortably echoed in the prince's. He remembered one or two of the priests in Meredith's associations, peace and brotherly love hadn't turned up often in their sermons.

-o-o-

Sebastian loosened the laces of his tunic, which while still of fine make seemed far simpler than usual for the role of 'Prince of Starkhaven'. As Hawke watched he shucked the garment off his shoulders to hang at his waist, kneeling before the priest who held, Hawke idly noted, a 'penitents whip'; three short tails, untipped, designed to cause pain but not lasting injury.

"The things you learn about people's tastes; and you were always so keen to get the rest of us sinners along to confession…"

The prince's eyes glittered; "Touch me with fire that I be cleansed" as he began the words of the familiar ritual.

"Forgive me Maker for I have sinned."

"Speak your sins and be heard."

There was a dry rustle of leather and metal, reminding Hawke that he'd lost track of the guard's location in the strangeness of the scene playing out in front of him; an instant later the whip carved the first line across his back in a vicious return to reality. Hawke set his teeth together, feeling the wrench in his shoulders, the blood trickling hot as the ragged metal tipping the whip's longer, heavier fall tore open the welts. The strikes came in constant rhythm, punctuated by the more intermittent, muted slap of leather against flesh from the figures in front of him in between Sebastian's voice laying out a litany of sins. Careless words in anger, envy and faltering of his focus, pride at some element of the war…

-o-o-

"Pretty…low rate sins…there" Hawke bit out in gasps "No orgies…stat-statue polishing…quickies at confess-"

"Shut your mouth scum" the guard growled, stepping round in front of him to flick the whip without pause at his face. Hawke jerked his head back with a groan, clenching his eyes shut as the lash drew blood down his hairline; far too close. A second strike slammed into his throat like a fist and Hawke screamed breathlessly as another bit around his side, cutting across weals already inflicted to make a bloody latticework of his back. His lungs clawed for air as the cracked rib shot pain across his chest, chewing away any 'misery loves company' comfort at the sight of Sebastian's self requested punishment. The righteousness in the prince's eyes steadying the strain in his voice as the list of wrongs continued; real, or invented for this show Hawke wondered through the haze of pain. Losing track of the sins as the voices of the others began to blur, cutting out under the bark of the whip echoing off the walls and his own ragged cries as it laid his back open one way then the other, occasional lashes dropping low or curling across his chest. Eventually, dimly he heard the prince's voice admitting to 'indulging in foul lust under sorcery and my own weakness', 'leading other into temptation', 'failing in my duty to lead them'…a grunt of two forced from his lips as the priest's whip fell more readily.

_/Saved the best for last/_ Hawke thought hazily, if he could have gotten the words out past the pain. As the penance ended Sebastian's voice rose again.

-o-o-

"O Maker, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my Maker, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to amend my life. Amen."

"Our Maker, the Father of Mercies, who hath left power to his Chantry to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, In the Name of the Maker, and of His Bride, Andraste. Amen."

He barely heard the words through the agony that continued to slide like a knife across his muscles. It took long moments after the lash at his own back finally, finally whispered to a halt before he shakily raised his head to focus through the mist of sweat and pain, barely keeping his feet as his shuddering breaths scoured the back of his throat. Sebastian re-donned his tunic, fastening the laces as he rose, stiffly, to his feet but with the same righteous gleam in his eyes that Hawke had come to be wary of. He flinched as the other man gripped his chin.

"Do you wish to speak?" what might have been concern in Sebastian's voice given the lie by his eyes fixed on Hawke's.

"Yes…need to confess…" Sebastian raised an expectant eyebrow.

"You're a…lousy…lay."

The prince's eyes narrowed "From you, perhaps I should be relieved? And perhaps your focus should be returned to the matter at hand."

Sebastian left his field of view; Hawke caught the tang of salt and an instant later another hoarse scream tore from him as a hand roughly dragged gritty pain across his back and ribs. Up, down, the crystals felt as though they were etching the lash lines deeper into his flesh as blood ran freely under the new abuse. Eventually Sebastian's hand forced his head up, his thumb brushing a burning line across Hawke's cracked lips in a parting gesture before they left him hanging in pain and darkness.

* * *

><p><em>AN:_ I pretty much had this image floating around in my head as soon as I decided to write this fic. Let me know what you think, or if it's just my strange mind.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Refreshing the violence, non-con warnings.

Favourites are nifty, reviews are love and bring good internet karma; even little ones if you're liking it...

* * *

><p>"<em>We're getting out. And when we do, I'm buying!" Oh the bravado. But he'd let it run madly ahead of him as he'd gone amongst them, spinning wild reassurances and trying not to think about what cost in friends the battle plans in his head might demand. Until he reached the mage sitting apart, whom no-one except himself and perhaps Merrill had said two words to since they'd hit the Gallows. He wouldn't let anything show on his face that wasn't about being Hawke, Mighty and Fearless Champion of Kirkwall; tonight that mask was proving useful. But it was there on the edges of Anders' expression if you knew where to look for it. The thought that said I don't know where I am with you./_

_He wouldn't acknowledge Anders' right to the faintest hint of wanting things to be better, or the way they had been, or anything other than what they were. He wouldn't let those thoughts form in his own mind either._

_/Because maybe things would be different if you'd seen the one thing you should have after all these years./_

"_We'll need to get out of the city, however this turns out."_

_/Assuming we're not all dead from what you've done/ hovered on the edge of the awkward silence as Anders nodded._

"_And then?"_

_/And then we run; it's an old familiar dance to most of us. And don't you dare ask if I'll run with you./ There was no more bravado, no lie he would give._

"_Just get to that point." Hawke walked away, for once taking the coward's route because he wasn't sure if it would hurt more to see false hope or understanding in those eyes; and angry with himself for caring._

-o-o-

An enthusiastic kick sent the cell door crashing open. At some point after Sebastian had left they'd dropped him down, hands once more behind his back as skin, metal and stone ground against the lacerations no matter how he moved. This time they'd brought water, toying with him, letting it run across the flags in slow trickles to nowhere just out of reach. Any hope of a drenching to ease the bite of the salt went unanswered, apparently the misery was worth the growing reek of sweat and blood and piss within the room. Death from thirst seemed unlikely to be Sebastian's plans; Hawke clung to that as he licked the blood from his lips. He couldn't hold back the whimpers as the blood ran down his back under somebody's boot, but he wouldn't beg.

The victory came to seem hollow at best. He was shivering, barely aware of the next time footsteps crossed the cell, in time with the throbbing pain in his head. Reflex had him swallowing at whatever vessel was placed at his lips, regretted an instant later as he retched, gasping. The liquid was foul; barely reconisable as water.

"You'll drink what you're given." A hand at his jaw prised his mouth open, ignoring his resistance. Hazily he thought he recognised the voice of the guard encountered only during his short-lived escape attempt. If his tone was flat, uncaring it also lacked the amused cruelty of the others'.

_/Take it/_ Hawke told himself as he struggled to keep it down, along with the pieces of, hopefully soaked bread, if just enough to remind his stomach what wasn't in it. _/Stay alive; distraction; what you are now./_

A resolution that began to falter in and out under the pain; and the fear that the attempt might be nothing more than a vain hope. Strung up in the middle of that room that was both haven and hell, under light he was beginning to associate with pain; Sebastian's presence showing that he still drew the prince's attention. What that meant he didn't know; the move against Kirkwall could be happening even now, it wasn't as though Starkhaven lacked seasoned commanders. He could only hope that Sebastian had an interest in being personally involved in the city's fall; and that Aveline would give them a wakeup call…

-o-o-

"Silverite" the voice drew him unwillingly back to the present, and the item moving idly between Sebastian's hands. A slender rod of silver-grey metal, smooth tipped; a crossbow bolt if smaller than most. Its lazy arcs drew his eyes even as his mind shied away from possibilities.

"Andraste's own metal, said to be proof against poisons of the mind and body."

Hawke remained silent; they'd already gone through Sebastian's list of demanded confessions. They didn't change, neither had Hawke's answer. Today, for once, he'd simply said nothing- it saved moisture and energy and he had little enough of both.

"Poison that, one way or another will be drawn out and seen for what it is." Something shifted slightly on the table behind him as Sebastian unhurriedly moved away and back into sight, an almost miniature crossbow cocked and loaded held with a loose, familiar ease.

"Bow seems a little small today prince; not feeling up to drawing a full yard?" the words hoarse yet almost compelled; even as his brain demanded what in the Fade would it take to keep his mouth _shut_ for once. This time Sebastian seemed almost amused.

"Tools, like men, must be selected properly for the job at hand. And no doubt your friend Varric would tell you that size matters less than how it is used." His hand flicked up, and the snap of the bow and muted thud as the bolt buried itself in Hawke's left shoulder vanished under a white explosion of pain and his own jagged howl shredding his throat. Fighting to lock his teeth hard enough the muscles in his jaw spasmed; as his vision cleared in flashes he became aware that Sebastian stood waiting again; his eyes flat but for a hint of almost curiousness. Hawke turned his eyes to trace the lines between the stones of the far wall and waited. Another snap, another scream as the second tore low into his right side, scraping bone. The cell fell into darkness behind Sebastian's departure; leaving him shivering helplessly with cold, and pain that spiked white hot with every movement.

He couldn't have said how much time had passed when Sebastian returned. This time the prince said nothing, asked nothing. In spite of himself Hawke flinched uselessly when the other man approached, the deceptive strength in those hands that had kept him alive more than once in that previous life now directed to twist and wrench the bolt free of his shoulder, his cries echoing in his ears. Hawke swallowed bile, nausea twisting his gut, jerking away as its tip trailed blood- his own, down the lash weal at his hairline, hearing the chuckle from whichever guard was likely standing at the doorway enjoying the show. When the bloodied bolt tore into him for the second time, his leg buckling as it hit he would have thrown up if his stomach had had anything in it. Instead he settled for the welcome, if brief mercy of passing out.

-o-o-

The moments of the days? a week? that followed swam into a haze marked by light and pain, and all too rarely the chill blackness when he was alone; even that small respite tainted by waiting and the knowledge that it existed only at another's whim. And there were the times in between, in the almost dark except for a single lantern. If sometimes it was the guards' hands that began it, sliding metal from flesh with less skill and more cruelty it was always the prince's who 'treated' his wounds. Some weak excuse for a healing slave that merely ensured that infection and blood loss wouldn't spoil the fun. And for every welt where he felt its sting more around him flared with hot, sharp pain as those hands tore them open afresh. Next time it would be a new pattern, offering and ripping away the fledgling healing.

"_Where are we going after we're away from, well everything and everyone in the city?" Merrill's question to Anders was enough to make Hawke pause from re-entering the clearing, wondering if the other mage would answer. There'd been barely a word between the three of them over the past two days that hadn't been about checking directions (Merrill was giving those, what did that say about their situation?) or whether anyone was nearby who wanted to kill them. For a wonder they might actually find the now disused Dalish camp she'd mentioned, but they might have been walking in separate valleys shouting the information for the awkward silences and half glances that lay over the group._

"We're_ not going anywhere; if you wanted company perhaps you should have gone with Isabela." Weariness robbed Anders' snapped reply of its usual barb._

"They will not come for you; and you can give them no help when they will need it." As the pain clawed at his body the words clawed at his mind.

"_You shouldn't be travelling alone-"_

"_How touching; also stupid, since most of the rest of the world wants nothing to do with me. But then I suppose I'm never really alone am I?"_

"_Listen to your own voice Anders, not Justice's. What do you mean to-"_

"_You weren't listening were you? You never do; there's nothing separate of us. And it doesn't matter where 'I' go, there'll be healing, fighting, something to fill the days until the end."  
>"Hawke wouldn't want you to throw your life away."<em>

"_Well, he's not coming." The comment tried for dismissive, fooling nobody listening. Hawke kicked himself for being that fool._

"_No, but perhaps he was right" Merrill said after a moment, her voice sad but with a hint of sharpness. "And you don't have the courage to finish what you started."_

"Your attempts change nothing when our forces are moving even now; it will be only a matter of time." A thumb gouged at the bolt wounds, a spike nearly as bad as the original.

"_Advice on life decision-making from a blood mage?" Anders responded, a vicious edge returning to his words. "Please, do tell me, exactly how well did that work out for you and those around you? A shining example-"_

"Len' dol sarn!_"* If the words were unfamiliar, the sudden anger and disgust in them closed Anders' mouth abruptly. "I murdered my entire clan with my arrogance, my blindness. Every day I remember every death that is on my hands. Hawke should have killed us both. And every day is about making that a little less the wrong decision. You told me once that you were my future; you're wrong. I'm yours." Silence fell, as loaded as the final instant of a fuse._

"And at the end they will learn that you threw their lives away for the sake of one abomination."

He'd fallen awkwardly, his leg giving out to land him on the bolt through his calf forcing it clear through. When they'd jerked it out by inches it felt as though they were trying to take his leg off.

"_Fine." The word clipped with grudging acceptance, yet Hawke closed his eyes at the flash of relief spiked with guilt that flicked over him. As he stepped into view he wasn't the only one pretending that the conversation hadn't happened; and certainly hadn't been overheard._

"_Trail looks workable; we should make it there tonight if we move." The pretense that held right until he straightened up from slinging the rest of the gear straight into Anders' gaze. A heartbeat passed before Hawke tore his eyes away to set a pace out of the clearing that would prevent thinking about too much else; and wishing for that separate valley. He wasn't sure which emotion he was trying to run from; or from that look of trying and failing to feel nothing that felt far too close to looking into a mirror._

Heal and hurt, the pattern shifted across his body over and again, feeling each time the healing become slower, more ragged.

"It is so easy to end this; why do you make it so hard?"

-o-o-  
>"Still no idea; next." It was the truth; he hadn't heard the question in the words but they'd been down this road so many times that he could have limped down it with his eyes closed, and his hands tied behind him. Didn't that sound familiar?<p>

He heard the prince's sigh over the almost drunken chuckle from his own lips. He didn't bother opening his eyes, closed they were the only part of him getting any rest. Every shred of energy focused on trying to favour barely closed wounds while spreading the pain enough to keep him on his feet; just.

"Why do you persist in protecting the one who has brought you to this, at the cost of everything else?" Sebastian's tone was patient, reasonable; and implacable. And Hawke knew it would be the personal victory now, not the political bargaining chip that would light those eyes if he broke.

"Pretty sure… that was you. If you want new answers, try some…different questions."

Sebastian tilted his head; "But these are the truths I wish to have answered. The only truths that can offer any hope for your soul and those you cared about. And you are fast running out of days to do so."

_/It was a lie; he had to believe it was a lie. Didn't he? Wasn't it?/_ Wearily Hawke opened his eyes. "Not interested then in the truth that five minutes and a mage could tell you your sodding blood magic only exists in whatever delusion you came up with so you could have your holy war?" Maybe a different answer would get him different pain. Sebastian's eyes gleamed coldly.

"_My_ delusion. I saw you spare the abomination amidst the carnage of his crimes even as you say you are not in league with him. You desire him dead at another's hand? You give me nothing to find him and have it so. And you did not come to Starkhaven honestly to lend your aid; what then would bring you here if not some scheme to further the war for your mage. Which of us walks in delusion Hawke? Your choices all lead to here."

The last at least was true. _/So blood magic is easier to believe than that the Champion of Kirkwall ran away from making a choice./ _Standing at the dead end of his running, for once he had no answer.

A hand rested lightly on Hawke's chest, the touch for once gentle but still he tensed in expectation of pain. Trailing over sweat slicked skin and bruises, never breaking contact as Sebastian circled behind him; tracing for a moment through the hair at the edge of his groin before sliding lower to caress him from balls to head. The flash of raw sensation had him jerking backwards against Sebastian's other hand cupping his ass, pinning him. Hawke shivered under a second stroke; a choked gasp forced from him as the heat of a third tangled with hot wire through his muscles as a nudge at his leg splayed his stance wider. Fingertips across his ass and hips brushed against the edges of half-healed welts, the edge of pain, and something else.

-o-o-  
>"It is not too late to walk another path" another stroke, another nudge "you know the choices you must make". Another, fingers drifted up the inside of his thigh, against his sac; Hawke struggled to pull away, uncaring whether the helplessness would hit worse if he resisted, unable to not. The hand at his cock tightened cruelly, another dug fire from his shoulder; a shaky moan tore from him as the pain made a mockery of his attempts. Cloth and hard flesh pressed against him as Sebastian fumbled behind him, his grip a threat, a promise, a claim. A knee forced his legs apart roughly, but the expected pain seemed less as a single finger slid into him followed soon by a second; rough but without the viciousness of before. It was just physical, he could ride it, fade it out…until the lack of pain hurt worse than anything else as unbidden, unwanted his body stiffened under Sebastian's touch; tightness at the edge of pain stripping him from base to cleft, sliding over his head to slick him with his own wetness. Again, again; in rhythm with the fingers inside him. And the call of a touch that brought even a little ease made the price that would be demanded so much cheaper…<p>

"Thought you were all…pure now in the Maker's…eyes…desperate enough to hope…he's napping?"

"And so I am, for He sees all things, judges all lies; He has forgiven me my sins." Hawke almost welcomed the flash of pain as the prince's hands jerked harshly across and inside his body, the slightest waver in his body's reaction.

"But He has given me the task to bring others to know what they shall reap from their sins, to walk the path He has set for them. By whatever means needed."

"You're insa-" Hands gripped and splayed the cheeks of his ass, pausing for perhaps two hammering heartbeats before Hawke's words unraveled as Sebastian sheathed himself fully in a thrust.

_/Skills from your past life prince?/_ Hawke desperately reached for something, anything to gain a little stillness; the ferocious itch of days (how many?) of stubble, the moments of solitude that came in the blackness. Sebastian began to move, a not-quite-pattern to his thrusts that came rough, then smooth, matched by his hands that layered pleasure and pain until Hawke staggered, adrift, distress and desire in the half stifled sounds that were wrung from him as he fought his body's growing need.

-o-o-  
>A hand threaded through his hair pulled him against the body at his back, jarring them both into sudden stillness even as his body trembled in useless reaction. Teeth worried at the lobe of his ear, ungentle.<p>

"Tell me this is what you want" Sebastian's voice crooned "or beg me to stop."

His tongue was thick with the words, the temptation. _/Stop, enough, finish it, please…/_ Unsure even what question he would be answering. Sebastian's hips moved against his leisurely, withdrawing himself almost fully to deepen the next thrust. Again, rolling to hit that spot deep inside Hawke, and only sudden fear at what he would be required to say next had him choking them to a ragged moan. Thoughts of noble stances fractured as irrelevant against his body's arousal even as his mind screamed rejection. Still Sebastian moved inside him and around him, stripping him fast and roughly, drawing him over and through the momentary ebbs as the pain cut in and out. The prince's own thrusts came harder, faster, his rhythm beginning to falter even as Hawke felt the wet heat, the tightness pulsing along with his breath coming in burning gasps through clenched teeth. And then he was bucking, flooding himself across Sebastian's hand; until without warning another ground mercilessly into the barely scabbed hole in his side, pain raking across his chest; and Hawke screamed in release, in anguish, in helplessness.

As his legs buckled hips slammed against his in completion, as Sebastian spent himself deep inside, claiming him before pulling out to leave him hanging limply. Hawke let his head hang, his body one throbbing ache in time with his pounding heartbeat, every breath a half sob; silently begging for the blackness inside his head. Instead he felt the brush of cloth over skin, light but still too much as Sebastian almost tenderly cleaned away blood, sweat, seed; and perhaps tears however much he tried to deny them from behind tightly clenched lids. Every touch a reminder of what it left behind; he was not clean.

"The Maker will draw you up to walk beside Him on His path, if you will but kneel and ask for it. Why do you yet turn away?"

_-o-o-  
>No./ _Hawke blinked to clear his vision halfway and spat. Pointless defiance maybe, might help the blackness arrive a little faster. Any hint of gentleness withered as Sebastian raised a hand to his face.

"However high a price you choose to pay for it, eventually you will come to accept this truth; there is _no_ hope, nor mercy for you here but what I offer in His name."

A gesture and Hawke heard the guards at his back, saw the bow returned to Sebastian's hands. When they grabbed a hand each, pinning his fingers back against the chain, splaying his palms, he figured out the details too late.

Smoothly, unhurriedly Sebastian sent four bolts across the room, left, right, left, right. Metal screamed against metal on impact with the chain, shuddering to a halt having torn though flesh and tendons, shattered bones. The world went white under the agony, his voice cracking to hoarseness through his howls. He didn't know how he came to be falling, half-reaching to break the impact while still trying to cradle limbs that felt dipped in fire. The pain as he landed sent him at last into blessed darkness.

* * *

><p>AN: "_Len' dol sarn_"- bastardised Tolkienien and Dragon Age elvish, "stone-head child"


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: This chapter got away on me a bit, in the (hopefully) good causes of angst and action, so Ch5 will be up in a day or so._

_Refreshing warnings for this chapter of torture  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>From the way she hugged him with a grip like a bear for all her tiny size, her eyes luminous with unshed tears; she knew he'd be gone by morning. <em>

"_Dareth araval arla ven*; Creators watch over you Hawke, I'll walk with him for you."_

_Doing what he couldn't; so he'd hugged her back just as tightly, forcing something approximating an air that this was all part of a 'tactical retreat', and not a complete rout._

"_You make sure you take care of you. Don't get lost," (meant in more ways than one) "this isn't the Viscount's gardens." _

_That got him a shaky, almost-smile. "We'll find some way out of this; all of us. I believe that."_

_It occurred to him as she turned away to sit near the first fire they'd been willing to chance in three days of running, that she'd also taken the first watch. Meaning in good conscious he could either stand a double, or he couldn't leave without speaking to the third member of their party. The double watch might have been easier._

/Coward./

_At least he had movement as some level of distraction from his thoughts, he could sense it as he paced the long hours around the camp's edge; he was on watch but no-one else was sleeping._

_-o-o-_

Anders was already waiting, standing with his back to the low fire as Hawke approached, having run out of bad or merely terrible excuses. The silence stretched as they stood not quite meeting gazes; all about preserving night vision, or something.

"_You're leaving" Anders eventually said quietly, not a question._

"_Two targets are harder to track than one." Skirting entirely the matter of how incredibly stupid it was to be traveling solo at night, over unfamiliar terrain, towards a hostile border. Knowing that if he stayed until morning he might not be able to leave; and knowing he couldn't stay._

_Another long pause. "Where will you-"_

"_The less we know all round, the safer for everyone."_

"_Right." The silence was thick now, a sinkhole. The voice in his head screamed 'leave already!', but the moment hung like the instant of realisation when a felled tree turned the wrong way, and it felt like there was all the time in the world to watch but only a fraction of an instant to move, and to see if you went the right way._

"_Hawke…" Anders' voice was barely audible "I'm sorry."_

"_Not sorry enough to choose to do things differently" his voice rougher than he'd intended. "I'm sorry too." The tree in his head creaked and groaned along with those hemming the sheltered clearing._

"_Wherever you're going, take care of yourself."_

_He nodded once, shortly. "You take care of Merrill; she's risking a lot getting caught up in trying to help fix yo- all of this."_

"_Is that what what we had was? A problem that needed fixing?" The words took his breath away._

/I loved you, you idiot blind mage. Still do? Yes; no; I don't know./

"_What we had was a pretty good thing fixing problems _together_, but this slaughter, this war, is _your_ solution Anders; and if you're looking for forgiveness it doesn't come from me. For all your talk about sweeping judgements it seems like you and Ser Alrik had more in common than you thought!"_

_Anders' eyes flashed, literally, blue fire washing across his features, there and gone. _

"_**This is **_**what must be**_** for the tyranny that has been inflicted upon mages! Go! We have **_**no**_** need of your interference!"**__ The glow remained absent, but the ringing growl was Justice; wasn't it? _

/How much of you did I truly spare Anders?/

"_And how much Justice, and Vengeance, will be called for from both sides before this war is over? Most of it probably valid, more work than you know what to do with for a spirit all pure- oh wait, you don't bloody care about that, except to keep it going on your side so don't talk to me about fucking interference!"_

"_**You have brought nothing but weakness and false loyalty to the cause!"**_

"_Don't make me regret not sending both of you back across the Veil." Trees swayed in the shocked silence after the words came out of his mouth._

"_Hawke…Rael…" Anders' words, his own this time, were hoarse, as if they'd fought with another voice to be spoken._

"_Just find some way to make this count. If there's anything left when you're done." The tree screamed as it came down, destroying everything in its path and feeling as though it'd torn out his heart by the roots as it went. _

_As Hawke forced himself to turn and walk out of that clearing, the wind (really the wind) blurring his vision it didn't seem right that the destruction was only in his head as the last bonds in a group that had survived so much else came crashing down in ruins from a single night._

_-o-o-_

/Be still alive, dammit. And nowhere near here./

Wherever here was; from under the heavy, close hood smothering sight and a good part of breathing all he was sure of was upstairs, from when his shins collided with them as they dragged him stumbling. Muscles protested at the forcible return of movement and every wrench on his arms sent jagged slivers of pain through his hands. The damage was permanent; Hawke had known that in the days since Sebastian's last visit as he'd lain in the dark, metal at wrists behind his back cold against the hot agony that the slightest twitch of fingers brought. Unable to see, and unable to get the leverage to force the bolts out before that game occurred to them, although he'd tried and regretted it. They'd gotten around to it, eventually, gradually; enjoying the extra damage from several broken fingers and the sounds they'd dragged from him along the way. This time there had been no healing, to repair tendons, straighten crooked bones; by the time they healed naturally he'd be lucky to have enough use to hold anything at all, let alone a sword.

And so, along with the fear at what this break in routine would bring there came a single thread of almost hope, that if he died, just maybe it would not be alone and crippled in the dark. It was little enough.

Somewhere stone shifted to wool under his feet, a momentary halt as a door opened, still indoors? The hallway's chill lessened slightly but still enough to send his skin prickling. The carpet continued, denied vision his mind grabbed at other impressions, sounds, smells; little was offered, the room's size or audience he couldn't guess but any action beat nothing. The journey ended abruptly as a rough wooden edge gouged against his hips and memories still raw sent a different chill sweeping through him. _/No, please…/_ Hawke's panic-edged struggles earned him nothing more than a blow to the head and another vicious twist of a wrist as shackles were removed. Then the wood was rough against his back as he was dragged across it, limbs spread-eagled, chained again. If this time he wasn't trying to stay on his feet there was also no give in his bonds, and the sensation of helpless vulnerability was worse than he'd ever felt, knotting his gut. Cloth against his mouth threatening to gag him as his lungs clawed for air that wasn't there. Hawke flinched away from the sudden flare as the hood was removed while embracing the returned ability to breath. A slap, casual, directed his focus to the figure at his right; resolving into Sebastian.

"There has been a battle. Kirkwall attempted to force this confrontation prematurely. Their army has been routed and destroyed, and your resistance and theirs have run out of time and resources."

"Don't…believe you." The denial rasped in reflex. Too soon, they wouldn't have been so stupid, even outnumbered as Kirkwall's army would be; how long had he been here? He had only the prince's word…

Sebastian shook his head. "It is of no matter; the Maker has sent his judgement. You have not been my only concern these past weeks, Hawke. Preparations were made for war but Kirkwall's envoy was returned under orders to tell no-one of your apprehension. Your co-operation was to be a part of the means to gain a swifter submission from the city in the hopes that some mercy could be shown to those inhabitants not under the sway of that nest of malificarum. The delay your defiance caused was what drove them to the madness of a fight they could not win. Their deaths are on your hands Hawke."

"Sounds…just like your…blood magic logic. Where's your evidence…"

"Of a battlefield? The truth needs no tokens and in a few days you see the result for yourself when we accompany our forces to Kirkwall's gates. But before then you have one remaining chance of redemption in the Maker's eyes. Call on Kirkwall to surrender, publicly confess and repent your sins and mercy can still be shown to your surviving companions, perhaps even for the abomination when he is run to ground. With control of Kirkwall's territory it is only a matter of time, and there are many deaths that do not come with the mercy of Tranquility's forgetfulness."

"Half the city usually wanted...to kill me, probably a few…more by now, and some…former friends. Things were a bit…tense when you left, what makes you think there's…anyone left who cares?"

Sebastian smiled thinly "You expect me to believe that all of this has merely been for the purpose of defying me? The position of Champion in the Free Marchs has always been built upon fear as much as anything, but despite and because of this your words carry weight. For all that people will try and twist a symbol's meaning for their own ends they still follow that symbol's lead. And the submission of such a symbol will carry more weight than they expect." Sebastian's voice did not raise but the implacability was back in his tone, the righteousness in his eyes.

"If you turn away from this chance you will learn how men can destroy the symbols they create. The city will be taken by force and hundreds more will die in the hard task of purging the malificarums' influence. And for however long that takes you will remain Starkhaven's guest, subject to whatever we see fit for whatever questions we desire answered. Eventually when it is over they will learn that their own Champion brought them to this pass. And in time your precious Anders will die with the knowledge of how you confessed your sins and his to buy yourself mercy. _This_ is the choice before you, _which way do you go_?"

He wanted the way that came with no more pain, or humiliation, or the fear that eventually likely sooner rather than later he would say what they wanted to bring an end to it. If there even was such a way. Sebastian's words wound around his head like knotted cord; what if it wasn't true?

_/Say it; this is your only way out./_

What if it was; would Sebastian even let it end that easily?

_/Say it. Say it./_

_/There is another way out; one that leaves you as nobody's puppet. If you're ready to die./_

_/Yes. No./_

He had a moment to wish that it hadn't all ended with them outcasts among outcasts, even as he let go of the final remaining hope he'd been holding buried deep that somehow he'd see any of them again. Accepted the fact that won or lost this fight was over. Accepting that the expression in Anders' eyes in that clearing was the final time…hurt; a lot.

_/Stupid…brilliant…infuriating…lover./_ Dredging together a final scrap of resolve.

"I'll take my judgement from the Maker. Not you." The words came hoarse but clear from a throat too many days dry. As Hawke turned his head away the edge of his gaze caught a glimpse, narrow through an archer's window of an inky sky in the moments before twilight faded to darkness. Fleeting but real; enough, perhaps to think that not all of the darkness would be unnatural.

"So be it. Then we will ensure your sins are not forgotten for when you met Him." From somewhere beyond his angle of vision a voice (Sebastian's templar priest?) began speaking; prayer, the Chant, discerning the words ceased to matter as the small fine blade in Sebastian's hands came down for the first time.

-o-o-

The lines were deep, but precise, carved into his chest through skin and muscle just so; the blade like frost against the pain that ran hot in blood. Hawke struggled against bonds that stretched his limbs so tightly that his efforts were nothing more than feeble scrabblings, reduced to nothing by a hand heavy on his chest, steadying the prince's 'canvas'. It took long minutes to register that the marks being etched were letters, words. It took longer still over the sounds that trickled from clenched teeth through his efforts to breathe, with muscles that spasmed in agony, to connect the phrases that Sebastian murmured as he worked as being the subject.

"Those who bear false witness, and work to deceive others, know this:

There is but one Truth.

All things are known to our Maker and He shall judge their lies."

Pain rippled through him in waves, trailing the torturous progress of the blade across his body; only this time it refused to bring with it the release of passing out. Sebastian's voice came and went; sometimes he worked in silence, leaving Hawke's ears full of his own cries scouring his throat raw until they were nothing more than a whisper. Sometimes as the pain swept him up sending him spinning, drifting, drowning in it he found some words of his own, tumbling half-remembered, half-strangled.

"Bring out the whiskey mother, I'm feeling frisky mother,

I need a nug to keep me warm through the night.

Bring me my brother mother, I'll have no other lover,

Kirkwall's perverted, Starkhaven's depraved."**

From the way the prince's lips tightened it wasn't a favourite; but his hands continued their work, confident that the words with the knife would eventually win. Every so often Sebastian's verse of choice changed, and so did the location of the pain; the words etching their way along his arms, shoulder to wrist.

"Up in the Marches heather, bring out the whips of leather,

Whip me soundly lassie I'm so horny tonight."

"Those who oppose thee, shall know the wrath of heaven.  
>Field and forest shall burn, the seas shall rise and devour them,<br>They shall cry out to their false gods, and find silence."

"Down where the streams are winding, bring out the ropes for binding…"

The tune near unrecognisable.

The blade had stopped he noted hazily, the pain momentarily coming from his own shuddering breaths twisting the cuts in their orderly lines down to the base of his breastbone. He jerked, as a cloth roughly swept at the blood that ran freely still, the smell of it thick and sickly sweet. Then leather, a glove wet with something retraced the wounds and Hawke tasted fresh blood as yet another hoarse scream ripped from his abused throat. The liquid, thick and slightly gritty burned like acid as it filled his wounds, cauterized them. Black like ink in the brief glimpse when his eyes wouldn't obey his efforts to keep them closed, he did not want to see as again he was marked, claimed for someone else's purposes and his cries were as much in desperate denial as from pain.

For a moment the world was, at last, starting to fade until water from whatever bog they were using for his rations hit his face. He was unshackled, flung face down as he realised too late to be useful, rough wood grinding against the raw mess of his chest as the restraints returned; and it started again.

-o-o-

Sebastian carefully picked out the few places where the whip hadn't already written its own message across his back. Lines twin to the first along his arms, down his flanks threading through bruises and around half-healed wounds. Every pivot of the blade in his flesh felt as though it scraped the words into his bones. Eventually the focus shifted below his back and Hawke howled as pain consumed him, as if the lines (words, he barely remembered) were stripping the skin from him piece by piece, across his ass, down his leg, stamped on him and sealed.

"…I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night..."

"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.  
>Foul and corrupt are they<br>Who have taken His gift and turned it against His children."

"Maker knows I wanna, bring out the greased iguana…"

When words unravelled to wordless screams, inside his head he would have taken an end, blackness, death from anyone or anything. But this time there was only light and pain, and every useless writhing struggle to escape made it worse. On his back again everything was a haze, is it dark outside the window, has it been long enough, can he die yet? He can't see the window, it never existed; there is nothing natural here.

"…Sons of the Templar order, make their horizons broader…"

The voice fading in and out of his ears had a rough echo…

"With passion'd breath does the darkness creep.  
>It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep."<p>

…not Sebastian's, his; in gasping, fractured phrases. Desperately Hawke clenched his teeth against them even as the knife sliced its way from navel to hip, stealing any ability to speak. He did not want to imagine what he must look like, patchwork, dressed in a grotesque motley; but he will not dance for them-

Words and knife both faltered, replaced with a dull roar, more voices shouting but why or who didn't matter because suddenly, mercifully the darkness was pressing in around him, welcoming, and at once it was so easy to slip into it away from everything…

* * *

><p><em>*Dareth araval arla ven: approximately, 'Go safely on the long journey home'<em>

**Original words not mine (I tweaked them slightly), sung to the tune of 'Scotland the Brave'


	5. Chapter 5

The numerous advantages of being a dwarf were generally obvious Varric reflected; but right now the most striking example was that he wasn't the target height for the truly frightening amount of magic being flung around an enclosed space by the two mages in front of him. As they moved through the mansion's corridors in a tide of chaotic and icy death anyone with a shred of 'wanting to live' would have cowered or run. That might have gotten them off with only severe frostbite or temporary insanity since they didn't have time to make sure of every kill. That was the job of Isabela's pack of scrounged lunatics. There had been a plan involving stealth but at this point that was pretty much blown to the arse end of the Fade, along with whatever was exploding outside. He could only hope they were on the right track because if not…well there wouldn't be enough of this place left to make a brick from.

-o-o-  
>Varric should have known it wouldn't be that easy from the way their opposition fell back as they rounded a final corner, heading for the open door at the corridor's end. Ordinarily they would have kicked it in and gone in loaded for ogre, but the words that met their ears in a 'Haven brogue that Varric had really hoped to never hear again, impending wars aside, had them skidding to a halt inside the doorway as if the room was a pit trap.<p>

"Another step abomination; and he dies."

"**Then all of you will die."** The words rang with Vengeance.

Sebastian chuckled once mirthlessly, as he stepped through the line of closely packed guards cordoning off the room's far side.

"Should I believe that you came intending to trade Hawke's life for mine? Were that the case you would have destroyed the estate where it stands, is that not now your method?"

"It's me you want, not him." Anders' voice now rough but recognisably human, blue flame only the merest flicker in his eyes.

Ranges, angles, targets, Varric noted them without thinking, all the while trying to fade out of everyone's notice, become part of the wall; waiting for the opportunity Anders said they'd create. Bianca was twitching although he was the only one who'd notice, at a point off to the side of the room; something to be wary of.

"Actually I want both of you" Sebastian replied calmly, as if discussing the purchase of horses. "However much I desire your death to provide some measure of justice for the evil you committed, I harbour no illusions that it will bring an end to the chaos. Do not have the arrogance to presume that this is _your_ war any longer, malificar."

"So, no chance of death without the sermon then."

"Oh I will still find a purpose for your death more fitting than that of your life. I'm surprised any of your companions remain with you, though perhaps their loyalty is more to Hawke than to two blood mages; Varric."

Nugshit; Choir Boy always did have a knack for reading a battlefield, hadn't made him any less irritating.

"You will all serve a purpose, I have no doubt many of Kirkwall's people will wish to learn of all those responsible for what truly happened at the Gallows, and for their current situation. For now that does not matter, you do not have the numbers to prevail here and I have something you want; and your lives are convenient, not indispensable. Drop your weapons and the shield I know you hold abomination, and you may live long enough to see him again."

"Where is he?" The faintest edge betrayed the flatness of Anders' tone.

"One more refusal of my order away from being unable to see you, were you to stand in front of him." The flat statement of intent needed nothing else to threaten.

_/Blondie if you were going to pull anything from under those feathers, this would be the time/_. Anders' eyes blazed for a moment, this time all human before shields flickered and staffs clattered to the ground. Bianca was already moving in Varric's hands, she wasn't the type of lady to sit the last dance out but as wood hit stone there came a crack and a howl as ice arced across the line of enemies. Merrill crumpled to her knees as Anders staggered back against the wall. Who, what, how didn't matter, Varric already had his target; currently helpfully centered inside the glowing patterning of a glyph and not going anywhere.

-o-o-  
>It would have been a killing shot, if not for the white haze washing over the room smothering anything arcane. The bolt nicked past Sebastian's shoulder as he twisted, suddenly free; and then it was the familiar chaos of magic, weaponry and trying to keep two mages with about as much sense as a week old bronto between them alive. He'd gotten one, seen one go down to friendly fire; in front of the door was a roil of smoke and fumes and, Andraste's blessed tits, finally the purple misted death that meant Daisy was still fighting. Anders had gone after Sebastian as if the rest of the room didn't exist, the other man eluding him like a wraith. Varric put one man at the mage's heels down then threw himself sideways with a whisker to spare; time for another trick. Roll, reload and Bianca spat flame, she'd always preferred screams over laughter in response to her one-liners. Anders was shouting, the fury if not the words clear; Anderfels? He knew the reason though; when the line of enemies had broken up he'd seen the table off to the side of the room, the restraints, knew who the figure on it had to be although he wouldn't think on that now. Reluctantly he gave Anders his target but silently vowed that whatever else, Sebastian <em>would<em> be meeting his Maker tonight. It seemed like the mage was the only one still on the 'take alive' list, the mob seemed to be waiting for- Bianca pivoted in his hands before the thought was finished, even as the figure appeared out of the smoke.

-o-o-  
>"Blondie! Assassin!" Too late; Anders cried out in desperation as much as pain as a knife buried itself in his leg but it was the white flare from the assassin's hand that sent the mage to one knee. Templar, worse; death <em>and<em> sanctimony. Beyond he saw Sebastian turn to snap off another volley towards the knot of fighting by the door _/hang in there Daisy/_, felt too much attention turning to him and knew he didn't have the spare moment to take the shot with the heaviest bolt he had left. But it was worth it when it punched into the hunter's ribs, sending him staggering away from Anders _/Dig that one out, nug humper/_. Varric managed to dodge the swing of a blade enough to have it tear through his shoulder instead of taking his head off, but the shield set him sprawling, sound and vision fading out in flashes. He saw Anders fumble for a flask as Sebastian stalked over to almost lazily send another arrow to shatter the glass vials and bury itself in the mage's side. Anders slumped, magic sparking and failing across his hands. Varric swung Bianca for once slow and heavy (sorry baby), knowing that the dice were not smiling this time; then the sparks caught and flared as Anders' hand flicked out and jagged red shards sprouted from Sebastian's throat.

-o-o-  
>The instant's shocked (and darkly satisfying) pause from the foe in front of him was made all the sweeter by the sound of Bianca's bayonet singing from its sheath to find a new home. He wasn't the only one to see the prince's fall; the press of figures around Merrill loosened then went flying from a blast of force as she dragged herself to her feet. <em>Finish this mess/_; from somewhere he dredged up some reserve of speed and extra bolts and between them, raggedly, the last of their foes went down. Too sudden, that wasn't the last there was still-

"No!" Anders' scream was strung through with despair at the figure by the table, daggers poised…For an instant it was as if nothing had broken from those past months, the moment slowing as the hex, the bolt and the shimmering deadly cage converged with perfect timing. The hunter's body twitched and jerked silently before falling broken to the floor as time starting running again, too loud, too fast.

"Blondie. Blondie! _Anders!_ Fix yourself first; he needs your help!" Varric forced healing and lyrium flasks at the mage, shocked at the iciness of his hands, the fingertips an ugly purple; how much had those last castings cost him? Staggering slightly over the hunter's remains Anders drained the contents uncaring, but a lot of details suddenly became unimportant as Varric registered fully what was in front of him; the table, the blood, and the terrible injuries on the form lying far too still and quiet.

"Hawke…Oh Ancestors" Varric didn't have the words.

_/He's not- Blondie's working- that means he's still-/_ tears were running unheeded down Anders' face but his hands never stilled. Varric felt a tightness at the back of his own throat as he moved forward, not really sure of what he could do _/get him free at least-/_. The chains shattered like a scream in the sudden silence to chunks of metal and ice; Anders didn't look up, Varric took the hint.

_/Daisy, is she-? You know eventually you're going to have to start using complete sentences, reputation for eloquence to uphold or something/_. Paranoia made him check the prince's body, that and a vicious desire to make doubly sure with an offering from Bianca. He settled for taking careful note of the ruin of Sebastian's throat and chest from what might have been ice if not for the colour; spikes of blood, sunk deep and not yet melting to add to the spreading crimson pool. Necessity was the mother of invention but even so, what have you been doing these past months mage?

_/Daisy./_ Varric scrounged two more flasks, downing one himself with a grimace as he hurried over. Drink now collapse later, part of an escape plan involved actually leaving didn't it? Or he'd been writing them wrong all those years. Merrill sat, her head tilted against the wall; she reached up shakily to take the flask from him.

-o-o-  
>"Did we…win then?"<p>

"Looks like." He was relieved when some of the pain left and some of the colour returned to her face. Her eyes widened.

"Hawke! Anca Fen'Harel* is he, did we-?" He didn't know what to tell her.

"It's bad but, he's still alive; Blondie's working." He reached for a distraction.

"You two had me worried for a moment before Daisy, not mentioning that mostly surrendering was in the plan. What was that little trick you and he pulled out to start this whole dance off?"

"Trick? Oh the, loose casting I suppose you could call it. It's much faster but it does tend to kick a bit. But this time it went very well really."

"Do I want to ask what 'not well' involves?"

"Umm, things, bodies tend to explode but since that didn't-"

Wearily, clumsily they both turned, reaching for weapons as the door was flung open _/here we go again/_ before Merrill hastily collapsed the barrier rune across the entrance as Fenris appeared.

"Unless we wish to stay as the building burns down around us, we need to leave now."

"You took your sweet time" came Isabela's lilting if barbed tones from just beyond the door. "If there's an orgy of reunion sex going on that I wasn't invited to I'm not going to be happy!"

Three heads shook in unison, an almost smile tugged at Varric's lips before he remembered.

"Blondie; we gotta go."

"It's too soon, I can't move him."

"Well our distraction seems to have graduated to destruction; we're running out of building. Just, carry him, keep doing what you're doing, we'll take care of the rest."

In answer Anders lifted his hands momentarily, awkwardly shrugging his coat to the floor. Well it beat using anything carrying Vael's mark; Varric didn't like how loosely it fitted as he bundled it around the fighter's usually stockier frame, now cradled brokenly _/don't even think it/_ in Anders' arms. The mage followed Varric's directing tugs and prods blindly, all his attention elsewhere.

By the time they'd cut their way out and left the flames behind Varric had acquired an impressive new collection of prayers and curse words from half the languages of Thedas, from the Anderfels to Rivain. And dusted off a few of his own; to fervently ask that in the days to come he wouldn't be getting another language lesson in how to say goodbye to a friend.

* * *

><p>*Anca Fen'Harel: Tolkienian and Dragon age elvish, 'Fen'Harel's jaws'<p>

_A/N: One more chapter to go, because nothing could_ possibly_ go badly from here..._


	6. Chapter 6

Something stabbed at the darkness, forcing him staggering, groggily, back to consciousness. He would not go back, would not be denied his choice of when to die. Light, threaded through with voices, it was too loud, too bright. Light meant pain and he lashed out in blind panic, wrenching frantically to free his head, his hands. Ignoring the sharp pain the movement brought, a scream of fear cracking his throat, half lost under his heartbeat hammering in his ears. The fear spiked as he felt pain and weakness sapping the momentary burst of terror-fueled energy, still he struggled to get to his feet, to run, fight, force them to kill him…

Someone else shouted in pain as his elbow connected, he snarled hoarsely at the chance to return some of that pain, the grip on him lessened-

"Aneth ara."

"lath sulevin, lath araval ena

arla ven tu vir mahvir

melana 'nehn, enasal ir sa lethalin"

Hawke flinched violently away from the words but the touch that came with them was gentle for once, gradually his mind registered the language if not the words…the lilt in that voice…

The world began to settle in pieces into focus as he saw properly for the first time the figure in front of him, one hand lightly caressing the side of his face.

"_Merrill?_" he rasped, the word barely audible in a voice hoarse from disuse and abuse.

"It's me lethallin; you're free, you're safe. Well actually, it's most of us."

"You gave us all quite a scare; making us think you wouldn't show up to your own party."

Varric's banter as he came into view helped to lighten slightly the concern and relief in his voice as Hawke blinked around him, instinctively trying to register his surroundings. The 'shelter' around whatever he was lying on seemed half rock, half canvas; pulled open beyond the foot of the bed to admit the first natural daylight he'd seen in…too long.

It was too much too suddenly, a large part of him refused to believe that any of it was real. Hawke started at movement off to the other side of him and then stopped, as his mind insisted that this could _definitely_ not be real, staring at a face he'd let go of ever seeing again.

If the others looked tired, Anders was beyond exhausted, his face drawn with deep hollows worn under bloodshot eyes. Blood trickled from a split lip; Hawke suspected he might be responsible. As he went to try and raise a hand one of Anders' was there in an instant, gently pressing them against the rough wool of the blanket.

"Hold still." Anders voice was as ragged as he looked but still managed to carry that note of 'Healer Says So'. "You've been out of it for three days, and the healing isn't complete yet."

He could feel the truth of that, his body felt as weak as a drowned puppy, the pain muted slightly but still there, some injuries- Hawke pulled his mind away, unwilling to examine those thoughts just yet. And just as unwilling or at least unable to try and untangle the mess of emotions concerning the mage in front of him who he was still staring at as if at a stranger. Except that this was Anders, and however hard he was trying to hold that particular Look of businesslike irritation and concern that healers everywhere seemed to know, Hawke saw clearly through it to the same confusion behind.

A thin tendril of healing warmth spreading up his arms and through his body helping to dull the pain a little more gave him an excuse to look down; each of his hands firmly cocooned in linen, bound against something thin and flat. A neat job hiding the damage underneath…as did the shirt he idly noted; its long sleeves and neck preventing a casual glance from seeing what remained of the, markings…Hawke swallowed, trying not to flinch at the flash of memory…_Sebastian's words in his ears, on his body, the pain eating away at him piece by piece, line by line…_

"They're gone." Hawke jerked his eyes up to Anders' again.

"The- markings, they're gone; there shouldn't be any permanent scarring if you're careful. And your hands, they will- you'll have the use back, the healing just had to be…delayed. It's been, busy."

Was it supposed to be like this between them, that so much was the same when everything had changed? The thought of carrying that message, those memories on his flesh had sickened him; the thought of losing the use of his hands had terrified him. And of all his injuries, Anders had known.

_/Why, _how_ are you even here? What do you want? How is there even an 'us'?/_

Too many questions, and from the look returning his Hawke didn't think either of them had any answers.

"Where is this?" Turning to the questions hopefully easier to handle, although his head was starting to feel like a dragon was chewing on it and his mouth tasted like a dragon pit smelt. Anders offered a mug to Hawke's lips as if to give them both something to pay attention to. Water, plain and clear; it tasted like the Golden City itself.

"Somewhere _delightfully_ scenic, so far in the middle of nowhere that no-one from any side is going to bother coming to claim it." Varric's tone indicated clearly his opinion of 'scenic'.

Any side, three days…Sebastian's words came back to him in sudden worry and panic "Kirkwall, everyone else, what happened after the battle, the rout, where are 'Haven's forces, he said- whose idea was it to-"

"Whoa, whoa, easy Hawke." Varric's calm gently cut across his frantic words. "What battle, who said- oh you sanctimonious demon-fucking son of a …" the words trailed into muttering as Varric rubbed a hand across the bridge of his nose.

"There hasn't been a battle; we weren't even officially at war with Starkhaven although we all figured that would change when Arinshaw's lot came back. Aveline, Cullen and some of the nobles who managed to pull their heads out of their asses have been holding things together making sure that didn't happen. She'd have been here; she just didn't trust that job to anyone else."

"Then how did you know what- where I was?" He still had no idea himself.

"Kaie. We got lucky; she tracked me down after the delegation got back to the city, told me what had happened." From Varric's tone, he hadn't forgiven that. "_Bladedancer_ happened to be in port when we left- yes Rivaini and Broody are still around, didn't want to crowd you. Kaie was able to tell us some estate outside the city otherwise things would have been…complicated. But believe me…whatever he said, about anything, he lied."

He should have known, hadn't wanted to believe any of it, hadn't believed in much towards the end. The world became muted for a moment, too much change too soon inside his head.

"And Sebastian?"

"_Dead_." The reply didn't come from Varric. Anders busied himself fussing over the healing supplies scattered next to the pallet, avoiding Hawke's eyes when he turned to the source of that one word that burned with so much hatred and a vicious satisfaction.

Sebastian dead; there was relief, a fair amount of anger and hatred of his own, bitterness that he hadn't been able to help with that himself. Did that mean his thoughts of delaying tactics hadn't been entirely hopeless? He didn't know what to pull from that morass of emotion, as he tried to add it to the pile of things to set aside for now.

"How long?" Perhaps if he kept asking questions reality would start to settle into some form of more easily grasped pattern.

"From what Kaie said…two weeks. Maker's breath Hawke, if we'd known we could have- but no-one came back to me with anything, from 'Haven or anywhere else. Even Daisy used the contacts that I gave her once or twice otherwise this plan would never have worked, but your disappearing act worked a little too well."

"Perhaps it was just the surprise of finding you working for a sworn enemy" the edge in Anders' words was unmistakable.

"Wasn't exactly on purpose." He wasn't ready to do this yet, even if he should have known it would have come up sooner or later.

"Really; I'd assumed you were heading for Ferelden, but somehow you just _happened_ to end up at Starkhaven answering a 'guard dog' wanted sign?"

"There were mages, nobles and a horse cart; it's a long story." The first cracks snaked through what had seemed too good to be the whole reality.

"Well it's a good one; you certainly managed to make another name for yourself. Starkhaven and anywhere near it's had quite a reputation recently; as a deathtrap for mages. Someone with a talent for tracking them down, the Templars must have been delighted by your enthusiasm; I'm surprised they didn't recruit you themselves."

Anger wedged its way into the cracks, splitting them wider. "So Guards equal Templars now? Aveline would shove your head up your ass if she heard that."

"Or were they simply offering a bonus for every mage you brought in?"

"Just for the record, we didn't hand any mages over to the Templars since _every_ mage I've met in the last two months was trying to kill me and as many civilians as possible! Right now it's not war, it's slaughter; blood magic that makes Kirkwall's lunatics look like a sodding tea-party. In the end Sebastian was only interested in one mage's reputation though, yours. We've had a plot going for years to bring down Starkhaven by seducing its prince, using me; oh yes and blood magic. All in preparation for when you blew the Chantry- quite the crowning glory of blood rituals for whatever your plans were for this war!"

His words echoed into a stunned silence. Anders' next words died on his lips, he closed his mouth with an effort as they glared at one another.

"And do you _actually_ believe that?" The low words filled with incredulity and anger.

Whatever uncertainties he might have had in the darkest corners of his mind had vanished seeing the expression on Anders' face. But old anger had sunk its claws in now; blazing into life as if they stood again in that clearing, and he wasn't ready to let it go yet.

"That depends; should I?" Anders blinked as if he'd been slapped.

"If you really think that; maybe you should have given me up."

"Well it sounds like I was the only one smart enough to remember that you can't tell what you don't know."

"And if you did know?" Maybe he'd deserved that; this fight had spun away from its original purpose, now it was simply about sharing the pain around.

"_Does it look like I gave him what he wanted_?" Hawke hissed in fury. "Do you think there wasn't more he wanted, about you, about the others, about Kirkwall? How many others are paying the price in this war of yours? I'm surprised that fucking spirit even let you-"

"_Enough_."

The single word, not loud, silenced everything else in the room more effectively than the voice of the Maker Himself. The elvish that followed carrying that same weight was enough to snap them both out of the tunnel the world had become between the two of them. Staring at one another; feeling the anger racing in fine tremors through his body, momentarily pushing down the pain.

"I'll come back to renew the pain relief in an hour" Anders said eventually; his voice flat, dispassionate. His tone one he'd used when treating patients who'd likely deserved to become another unnamed Darktown corpse. "You need to eat and rest to build up your body's reserves enough for me to finish the healing."

He stood abruptly and strode out, ducking around the canvas' edge. Hawke missed the glance Merrill gave him, her eyes full of compassion before she followed the healer out; his eyes fixed on that visible strip of the outside world as if it was a dragon's maw that had just swallowed without a thought the minor miracle that had been a second chance.

Anger withered, leaving behind it a soul-deep weariness as he sagged. Hawke couldn't tell if it would hurt more to fall back into the darkness or stay with the tears that spilled from closed lids over too many things to name, even to himself; uncaring of his inability to brush them away.

* * *

><p><em>Yep; that went well. Unresolved issues much? But where's the fun in it all going smooth. This chapter sort of got away on me, so one more to go...<em>


	7. Chapter 7

The following three days had a surreal edge to them, even as Hawke drank in every detail to remind himself that rescue and freedom were real. He'd spoken to Fenris and Isabela before they left; the thanks he owed them couldn't really be put into words but he'd tried anyway. He'd managed to find a smile for the tales Isabela had told him about Fenris' adjustments to life on board ship; the elf had even joined in dryly with her gentle mocking. They seemed good for one another.

He was reminded that for all Varric's grousing about the outdoors "that got around, like a plague rat" he actually did a damn good line in camp cooking fare. While Merrill's efforts…well he'd never tell her. The two of them seemed to be conspiring to feed him enough for three people every moment he wasn't actually asleep. It might have been like old times…except...

Anders was unfailing as a healer, keeping the pain eased at every hour of the day or night; Hawke had no idea when the man slept himself. Eased enough for him to be reasonably alert when awake, and for the short blocks of sleep his body allowed him to be nightmare-light and actually restful, if harder by day. The stone was a little too close to cell walls.

He hadn't batted an eyelid as Hawke had growled and cursed his way through three days of embarrassment at the realisation that wrecked hands meant solo trips to the privy weren't happening. The mage had a knack for knowing precisely when to turn up and what to ask; and how to leave the instant nothing explicitly required his presence as a healer.

Varric and Merrill had filled the waking periods with enough talk of inconsequentials to keep him from dwelling too much on darker thoughts. Except for the one that wound through his mind every time, increasingly frequently, his invalid status chafed; filling him with a desperate desire for the healing _/at least the physical injuries/ _to be over.

The thought that said: _/and then what?/_

_/Wounds heal; becoming a warrior again, how long will that take. And where?/_

Thoughts of Ferelden seemed laughable now, thoughts of …here…Anders…those weren't even thoughts. Just a wall the size of a ruined building; studded with the shards of betrayal, everything they'd said to each other. A wall both of them were avoiding.

-o-o-o-o-o-

She'd found more berries to go with the battalion-sized meal she brought in the late afternoon; that sort of living off the land she did have a talent for, as long as no cooking was required. Possibly they were meant as a sweetener for the conversation, as she sat cross-legged beside him.

"The night we rescued you we had to rope him to the horse, and to you, because he wouldn't rest, wouldn't let anything interrupt the healing" Merrill said quietly after a moment.

"For two days after that we all thought we were going to lose you; I don't know how he managed to draw so much energy without- he still loves you." Her lips thinned "And he can still be a complete bloody ben-adar ('without father', bastard)" Hawke blinked at the use of the term from her "with what he said to you. You're right about what the mages are doing in this war; it's worse away from the cities. And there are Templars, and soldiers, who have gone rogue and what they've done, not just to mages…but that doesn't make it right. Even Anders- and Justice- have started to see that."

Hawke couldn't prevent mirthless scoff of disbelief at that.

"Talk to him Hawke" Merrill pleaded "Lethallin I understand why you left and if you want to again, but…The last few months have changed well both of us, lots of people I suppose that's what happens in a war, I'm rambling again, but Anders is trying to see things a different way. We've found a few places where people are willing to build something where it doesn't matter if you're a mage or not. Not many and it's, he's, not easy but just talk before you decide; whatever you chose to do."

So; it was really going to be that easy?

_/Coward. Stop running and make it that easy. How many times do you think the universe will offer this chance?/_

"Varric said to make sure you finish that by the way" Merrill indicated his largely untouched food. "He's right; once he leaves you'll need to be stronger than you are now if all we're going to be living off is my cooking."

"That's not- who said- " she giggled at him, and he couldn't help but smile back. She had changed; the grief and guilt of the past year was still there but she had a sense of purpose. Naivety had burned away into hardness but also confidence. And underneath somehow she had still kept the ability to find joy and value in things others took for granted. Perhaps a glimpse at the Keeper she might have become if things had been different.

"I'll talk to him." Somehow. "You were wrong all those years ago when you said you'd make a terrible Keeper, that you were no good with people." He managed half a grin. "In case you haven't noticed, we're all slow learners about that round here."

-o-o-o-o-o-_  
><em>

_/Just talk; Maker's arse, how- ?/_ The silence stretched awkwardly between him and the mage poised between sitting and fleeing for the darkness now fallen outside.

"Where did you find- "

"How did you get- "

Both of them waiting on the other.

"How exactly did you find a noble with a spare seat in a pony cart?" Anders tried again, after a long pause, his tone studiously neutral.

"Lady Harriman. Although she did start with a carriage…"

Although it probably only just counted as talking 'to' rather than 'in the general vicinity of' one another it was easier than he'd feared; even if he spoke little of anything concerning Templars and nothing of Sebastian. After a while, in his pauses, Anders began to speak as well. The horrors sounded familiar, the lighter moments much rarer; a refugee community protected by perpetually stoned sylvans, the lyrium smuggling racket that had turned out to be a noble importing some bizarre hallucinogen-laced blue confetti from Antiva.

They'd narrowly fought their way out of a blood mage cult who'd decided that having the starter of the revolution as their personal thrall would be useful; Hawke mentioned the exception to the rule mage who'd been the unwitting prelude to disaster. The harder questions waited patiently, winding their way up the list until there was nothing else; bollocks.

"You killed Sebastian."

"_Not enough_." The darkness was back in Anders' voice. "I wish I'd been able to keep him for you to help."

"Regrets on that one myself; but...you came; to rescue me."

"I would have come for you no matter what it brought."

"What does Justice have to say about that?"

"What did Merrill tell you?" Confirming Hawke's suspicions that he wasn't the only one she'd been 'organising'.

"It doesn't matter; I want to hear it from you."

"Did she make it sound noble, well it's not. What's happened, with the war, the mages turning on everyone, that wasn't what we, I, wanted. But I suppose that's the price of what I did to start it; and it doesn't matter what I wanted. All I can do now is try and make something from it."

"So you finally decided Merrill knew something worth listening to."

"She's been...good; better than I deserved. I don't think we've made it easy on each other. Justice was...shocked as well; he doesn't understand why it went wrong, although he sees it as the mages becoming distracted from what their true target should be. But I've been trying to let go of, some, of my anger, and the control it has over me; and to gain some separation between Justice and I, to make the bond in some way what we thought it would be."

"Has it worked?"

"No; maybe; I don't know. Spirits don't adapt well to changes in themselves. Justice wasn't prepared for what it would be like in another mind; when we merged my anger caused a lot of damage to us both. Trying to reverse the damage is much harder, maybe impossible. He's more unpredictable, harder to control, when he does try to manifest. I could tell you that he's responsible for the worst part of me; but I'd be lying. If I don't control it- " Anders' mouth twisted bitterly. "Isn't that what being a mage is? Control; holding onto it one day at a time. I already failed at that once."

"Would it have changed what you did?"

He knew he'd hear the truth when he saw in Anders' eyes the acceptance of what the consequences of his answer might be.

"Would I have tried to cause the death of fewer uninvolved lives? Maybe. But beyond that...no. The way the world was needed to be recreated, not changed around the edges. I won't lie to you again. But I am sorry."

"For what?" _/This time./_

"I could say for everything; but for what I said before, that you might have betrayed any of us. I couldn't bear the thought that…we almost lost you because of what I'd done. I don't have any right to ask for your forgiveness for anything, but…all I'm asking is that you stay until you're fully healed. Let me offer you that."

He wasn't sure what answer he'd wanted, or expected. More? Less? Justifications? Guilt? At least this time they'd been honest with each other, and neither of them could change what had already happened. But Anders' words gave him hope, just; that if he was willing to take this second chance he could help make it that he wouldn't have to watch as the man he (still) loved lost himself completely.

"When I left" Hawke said eventually "I was so angry at what had happened, I didn't trust what I'd do if I tried to make a decision about you, or us. But...demon's teeth, every day I was afraid I'd hear your name on a list of dead, or worse; was afraid, in that place, that Sebastian's...promises would come true."

The war wasn't truly his cause, but then how many of them had been over the years, except because he'd chosen to involve himself at the time. He was willing to accept that on some level it would still matter more to Anders than anything else; at the end of the day his only real cause had been about trying to keep those he loved safe. It was a record scarred by failures; but maybe, just maybe this wouldn't be one of them.

"Anders...I'm not going to run again." Voicing the truth that he'd known since faced with the choice of how to respond to the accusations Sebastian had flung at him that first night in the cell. "I want...to stay with you, make it work between us; whatever that takes. If that's what you want. Can we just...take it one day at a time?"

"Yes" Anders whispered softly, hoarsely "I want that." There were unshed tears in his eyes as he reached out a hand carefully, hesitantly as if afraid to believe that this was real. His hand brushed featherlight over the wrappings covering Hawke's, and Hawke could have screamed in frustration around the tightness in his own throat that he couldn't return the touch properly.

"Then for the love of all that's holy tell me you can finish this bloody healing soon" his voice wasn't entirely steady. "If I have to stay in this bed one more damn day..."

_/Injured, crippled, at someone else's mercy? Had enough for a lifetime./_

Anders' eyes turned serious. "I can, and sooner would be better except for the fact that your system is only barely recovered from the last round. But...it's not going to be easy, and there'll still probably be some scarring. To give you full use back- especially your hands- I need to reverse any 'healing' that's already happened. Since there's only me I can't put you out and keep you there safely, and I won't be able to give you anything else stronger for the pain; I need to be able to accurately sense your body's reactions during the healing to make sure no potentially permanent damage gets missed. So it's going to hurt; I'm sorry."

More pain; wonderful. The fact that this time it was supposed to make things better, not worse, wasn't as much of a comfort as maybe it should have been. As for the scars; well it wasn't like he didn't already have them; and he knew he'd be carrying a set of lash weals from now on to match those that patterned Anders' back.

"Fine; let's just get it over with. Then I won't have to put up with the bloody tree root under this bed any longer." Complaining required less thinking about than anything else that had happened this evening.

"The floor is rock" Anders responded, apparently happy to take the distraction. "So healing, and imaginary tree roots, can wait until tomorrow; you'll want the extra rest. I'll be right outside; if you need anything."

He needed space, although Hawke doubted that sleep would be making an appearance any time tonight; almost as much as he needed to not let the mage out of his sight; have him stay, talk, be silent; anything. The reluctance was clear in Anders' eyes as he stood to leave; but at least tonight the doorway to the outside world held the whisper of possibilities, not dead ends.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Anders hadn't lied; tomorrow took too long to arrive, and then far too long to go away; even with Anders' efforts to dampen the pain where he could to injuries waiting in line. The sensation as the bones and tendons in his left hand, the worse of the two, _shifted_, were forced back into place one by one under fingers and magic had the bile rising in his throat. He fought until his muscles cramped not to thrash under the hands on his chest gentle but steady holding him down. Anders', another's; Merrill?

Hawke clenched his teeth until it felt as though they ground together even through the leather folded in his mouth, struggling to hold any air in his lungs around the rasping half-moan, half screams that scoured his throat as he tried to swallow them. He did not want to look, fighting to hold onto the fact that this was Anders, not an enemy; that the eyes meeting his when he couldn't keep them shut held compassion not cruelty; warm hazel not cold blue. It felt like an eternity before magic flowed soothingly across his hand one final time. One down; one to go.

The respite when Anders' magic eventually faded as he carefully released Hawke's rebound right hand was both a blessing and curse, reminding him of how much there was to go. The thought of waiting any longer with that knowledge hanging over him however, was worse. He was grateful for the water offered, easing his throat as his breath came in shuddering, panting gasps; trying to ignore whatever Anders was setting up for the next stage.

The bolt wounds, simpler but deeper, required more knife work along with the magic to repair the damage. His voice was hoarse within minutes, despite the coolness trickling from the water-soaked leather again between his teeth. At times the world faded in and out in brief flashes to a white haze, throughout it all Hawke clung to the anchor of Anders' voice, murmuring, gentle in his ears, that it would get better, that it would be over soon…soon…Liar. One down; five to go...

When the pain lessened and actually stayed that way he vaguely assumed that it was finished; he wasn't about to argue with whatever liquid thick and bittersweet was offered to his lips that sent everything sinking down into blackness.

-o-o-o-o-o-

When he next opened his eyes the bivouac was in darkness, the thin strip of outside at the doorway showing the hazy light of early dawn. He still felt wrung out, exhausted, the deep, slightly fuzzy ache in pretty much everywhere a familiar sensation from the last few days. As he shifted slightly the figure beside the bed stirred. Light flickered in one hand as Anders straightened awkwardly, with a brief frown at the saddle he'd been curled against as if unsure how it had gotten there before turning to him; looking about as rested as Hawke felt.

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

Like he could sleep for another three days; at this rate he'd sleep through the entire wretched war.

"How long was I out?"

"Since yesterday afternoon." Hawke wondered if Anders had gotten any sleep at all since then, or if Varric had simply put the saddle there before knocking the mage out; possibly literally.

"Great; so _after_ everything's over you decided to bring out the good drugs?"

"That stuff wouldn't have helped with- quit that." Anders reached over to still Hawke's hands from pawing at their wrappings.

"One: they _itch_. Two: They're healed, and after yesterday you're _not_ going to tell me that I have to wait another two days or however bloody long to get these things off." He was well experienced with the difference between the pain of things broken, and that of things getting reacquainted with being whole. He just needed to see this time; even if his fumbling provoked a sharp twinge that had him hiding a wince.

"Hold still," Anders reached out to deftly take over "and just try and be gentle with yourself for once. If you undo all my hard work…" His care belied his words.

They weren't that bad, really; Hawke told himself. The ragged wounds where the bolts had torn through the most obvious; now neat, smooth near-circles of new tissue surrounded by a scattered cross-hatching of thinner lines. Still pink and new, but time would fade them. Unimportant, as Hawke gingerly flexed them; stiff and weak, that could be fixed; but _whole_.

You can keep moving them, _carefully_, to start regaining the flexibility; the strength will need to wait for about a week" Anders said quietly, his tone practical as his hand rested gently on the back of Hawke's neck, his thumb tracing small circles. The touch sent a sudden warmth that had nothing to do with magic down Hawke's spine.

Practical things could wait as Hawke turned to face Anders; bringing one hand up to brush back tangled hair from the mage's face, caressing the lean cheek and jawline as stubble prickled against the new skin on his hands. Seeing the hope and uncertainty like looking in a mirror.

"Thank you" Hawke said softly.

"For what? Betraying you? Going insane? Starting a war that will probably tear the world apart? I- Gods, Rael, I thought I'd lost you; I deserved to you after everything I did."

_/Maybe, but I changed my mind about losing you./_

"We both lost ourselves for a while. And you know what for."

_/And for making the one choice that gives me hope you don't want to stay lost./_

"What a balls up we've made of this. I'm going back to that 'one day at a time' plan; the universe never liked my clever ones anyway."

He wasn't sure who had moved first, but he didn't give a damn about the awkwardness of the angle; because right then all that mattered was trying to return just as fiercely the hug as Anders' arms tightened around him, careful even through the desperate touch hunger. To hold and be held and let that be everything for a while; burying his head in the crook of Anders' neck, feeling the other's against his shoulder, everything the universe by a miracle had given back to him. This time he didn't care to wipe the tears away. As first days of second chances went, Hawke would take every moment of it.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Aaand, thus concludes the longest fic I've attempted- and finished; thanks for reading. Liked it, hated it, leave a comment! As someone said, if you can't feed a writer's wallet, feed a writer's ego, it is isatiable!_


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